For decades, so-called experts have been predicting the death of print media. Similarly, TV was once supposed to usher in the death of radio, and audio-video streaming was supposed to do away with broadcasting … the list goes on. Even in the age of space shuttles and self-driving cars, you can still occasionally see someone in a buggy, pulled by horses, on the highways and byways that criss-cross our country.

The point is, there’s really no way to predict how technology will change the way we live, work, and do business. People forced to cross long distances under rough conditions wouldn’t dream that people today might choose the romantic notion of a horse and buggy when they had modern conveniences like AC and CD players in ultra-smooth-riding cars.

No one could see how print media meshes so nicely with Twitter hashtags and QR codes, or how TV and radio deliver a much-needed local spin to audio-video streaming. A new technology doesn’t have to mean the death of an old one. It’s impossible to predict beforehand how the two might meld together in unexpected ways.

How to Bypass Digital Disruption with a Managed Service Provider

Similarly, businesses haven’t been very good at predicting how digital transformation will change the company. Without the ability to see into the future, it’s impossible to see how everything cloud, the SaaS model of software sales and purchasing, or the advancements of mobile technologies will inevitably pan out. The confusion has led to a lot of digital disruption — a lack of successfully blending the old technologies with the new.

If this sounds too much like your business, don’t worry, because the majority of companies out there have not yet successfully undergone digital transformation. Most of the successful ones in all things digital aren’t those that evolved from then to now. The successful ones are those born during the digital revolution. So, they simply grew up as digital natives instead of having to learn how to drive a Tesla after spending a lifetime using a horse and buggy.

You’re Not Too Late! A Managed Service Provider Can Usher You Into Digital Transformation Just in Time

According to Forester, only about 27 percent of organizations already have a working digital strategy in place. So, if you’re late to the ballgame, you aren’t behind just yet. However, in order to avoid digital disruption and get right down to the business of digital transformation, you need to partner with a managed service provider. You can learn how other businesses like yours are struggling to navigate the digital age when you get your complimentary copy of Greg Hanna’s book ‘Computers Should Just Work!’.

A managed service provider is able to put all of the pieces of digital technology in place without causing massive disruption to the organization. This is because managed service providers offer the convenience of cloud-based products and services, which are by nature plug-and-play solutions. There’s no on-premises IT infrastructure to install, no ongoing maintenance, no additional staffing needs, and no complicated process of IT capacity planning. If you happen to need to increase your data stores by 10 percent next year or add a new software solution, you simply contact your managed service provider and order what you need.

A Managed Service Provider Makes It Possible to Upsize or Downsize Your IT Infrastructure as Needed

Similarly, if your business goes through tough times — say a new product line doesn’t go over as well as anticipated, or maybe a temporary downturn in the economy hit your sales pretty hard — you can downsize your cloud-based services without the financial hit you take after making huge capital investments in onsite IT infrastructure. In the economic climate we’re currently experiencing, this means a breath of relief for businesses wary of investing in the technological products and services they need.

Unfortunately, sitting out the digital revolution isn’t an option. Though businesses are currently undergoing more digital disruption than actual digital transformation, the majority are on their way to catching up. If you aren’t in this round of digital adopters, it’s likely your competitors will be. Without the means to compete digitally, they’ll quickly leave you in the dust.

Digital transformation delivers improved operational processes, rich insight and business intelligence, helps identify and eliminate wastefulness in the organization, revolutionizes the business’ marketing efforts, and improves every aspect of running a business from hiring practices to financial processes. Your managed service provider is able to offer you cloud-based data storage and software solutions so that you can adopt all of these technologies with minimal investments in on-premises IT products.

A Managed Service Provider Keeps Your Business Protected During Digital Transformation

Additionally, a managed service provider can help your business navigate the uglier side of the digital revolution. This includes the potential for disaster to strike and the ever-present danger of hacking and cyber crime. A managed service provider can deliver the protection you need from a plethora of threats that lurk about the digital universe, including monitoring application and network traffic for cyber threats, keeping systems backed up, and assisting with proven disaster recovery strategies. Whether your business faces a tornado, fire, attempted data breach, or just a simple power surge that takes out a few of your office computers, a managed service provider can keep your business productive and profitable against the odds.

How a Managed Service Provider Moves You Past Digital Disruption to True Digital Transformation
Digital disruption is when digital technologies — cloud, mobile, data, analytics, etc. — causes dishevel within the business. It’s marked by slow adoption or poor adoption of the technology, and is characterized by the inability for the business to see the improvements that the technology is supposed to deliver and a failure to achieve an ROI on the investment.

Digital transformation, on the other hand, is the process of the business successfully adopting new technologies and allowing the technology to do what it’s supposed to do in terms of revolutionizing the business. Digital transformation is marked by reduced waste, lower operational costs, and improved productivity.

A managed service provider can usher your business over the doorstep of the digital revolution, allowing you to achieve transformation via digital technologies, with minimal disruption or mistakes during the process. For example, a managed service provider can:

• -Deliver the cloud storage options you need so that you can store and utilize more data without additional investments in costly and difficult-to-maintain on-premises storage.
• -Deliver cloud applications so that the business can stop worrying about software license compliance, upgrades, and updates, expensive and time-consuming implementation processes, and other aspects of onsite software.
• -Empower the business with secure email. Since email is still the go-to way of communicating and collaborating, a managed service provider can provide safe, secure email options so that you can send sensitive documents to customers, partners, etc. that would not be safe to send through Gmail, Yahoo! mail, and other insecure email services.
• -Empower the business to fully leverage mobile devices. Though mobile brings a whole new layer of productivity and collaboration to the workplace, it also comes with compatibility and other issues that most small- to mid-size businesses have difficulty overcoming. A managed service provider can help the business undertake MDM, or mobile device management, without having to hire huge teams of mobile app developers for Android, iOS, Windows, and other mobile operating systems to do it.
• -Secure the business with the latest in security services. Last-generation security tools were basically made up of firewalls and antimalware software. Today, this isn’t enough. Firewalls and antimalware software must be backed up with ongoing, uninterrupted monitoring of systems.

Hackers don’t stop for nights and weekends, and your security solution shouldn’t either. Since almost no small businesses can afford to hire 24-7 IT staff, a managed service provider gives them the full-time security monitoring it takes to stay safe in this digital age. You can learn more about what it takes to stay safe in today’s digital universe when you buy the book ‘Easy Prey: How to Protect Your Business From Data Breach, Cybercrime and Employee Fraud’.

To get the managed service provider you need to successfully digitally transform your business without all the disruption